30 years ago, a multicultural trio who found delights on New York City dancefloors released a single that merged funk, pop, and disco in a hip-hop collage style. ‘Groove is in the Heart’ is a colourful and infectious song that’s become an enduring classic
The band’s origins were similarly cosmopolitan. Deee-Lite were both very New York, their music slotting into the city’s decadent club scene, and globally disparate — DJ Dmitry was from Ukraine, Towa Tei from Tokyo, and Lady Miss Kier from the US — anticipating the explosion in global pop in the late 2010s.
“We’re going to dance and have some fun,” starts Dee-Lite’s ‘Groove Is In The Heart’, which has been filling dance floors from the day is was released way back in the summer of 1990.
Well, not exactly bringing it up to date but more shifting it to a slightly more black denim- and leather-clad side of the nineties are San Diego noise pop pioneers Crocodiles. The flip of their ‘Sleep Forever’ single, this dirge-filtered cover of the 90′s dance classic perhaps won’t make you want to “dance and have some fun” but it will have the frequenters of indie discos swaying mournfully and partaking in some fairly liberal chin stroking.
As it effortlessly switches into a the unforgettable Beach Boys chorus of “I wish they all could be California Girls” Crocodiles have managed to suck the summer out of two of the most sun-kissed songs going. Quite frankly, it’s brilliant.
Radio Magazine about Barcelona's indie and alternative music & culture scene. Live broadcast every Thursday from 10.00PM to 11.00PM and Saturdays from 1.00PM t0 2.00PM at Barcelona FM 100.5
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